One of the world’s most popular PC gaming platforms, Steam, has smashed its own record for concurrent users online. The platform recorder over 19 million players using its service at once today.
There was a peak user count of 19,728,027 today, according to Steam’s statistics tracker. The previous Steam record was set last month, when around 18 million players were on at the same time. This jump in players has also reflected in specific games as well, including some popular titles like CS:GO and Dota 2.
Valve’s ever-popular first-person shooter was able to reach a peak player base of just over one million people today, while the company’s equally popular MOBA hit a peak of just under 700,000. PUBG had a big day as well, hitting a peak of around 525,000 people at once.
This jump in Steam users might be connected to the rising concerns around COVID-19. The disease was recently declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization and has spread to multiple countries across the globe, including the United States.
Because there are concerns over contracting the disease from public outings, a large portion of people have been incentivized to stay home, pull up a chair, and play some video games for the weekend. It does make sense, since many different events have been canceled for this weekend anyway—including multiple popular esports tournaments.
